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The acronym U.F.O. does not determine anything. It is a
definition by the negative. It says that we do not know what it is about.

That what we don’t know is the real nature of a “flying
object”.

The first objection we can bring is that maybe it is not
something that is flying but floating in the air, like a balloon or a soap
bubble. Basic point: not all the things that are in the air are flying.

The second objection is that the acronym refers to an
object. But it well could be the manifestation of energy or certain kind. For
instance: ball lightning, St. Elmo’s fire, Sprites, earthquake lights or
Hessdalen lights.

Therefore, if we exclude the second and third letter of
this acronym, we are left with the concept of Unidentified.

The immediate question is: who says something is
unidentified? Or how many people say it is unidentified?. Are there involved
detection instruments?

If –as investigators— we consider the UFO report coming
from just one person, the value of that report will be minimal, except if the
person is someone with a solid scientific background, which, nevertheless,
gives only a plus respect to a common individual, but not so much at all. Even
scientists could be confused.

If the report of the same phenomenon comes from a number
of witnesses who happen to be in the same area but that are totally independent
among them, the report acquires more relevance.

Undoubtedly something has been seen in the air that many
people were not able to identify with anything they knew.

If we add to the UFO report that besides many independent
witnesses, the phenomenon was captured in photos, video, and radar, the case
comes to be robust.

No doubt that something strange has happened.

The analysis of photos, videos and the radar tracking
–provided it has been recorded— will come in support of what eye-witnesses saw.

It is highly possible that once they are analyzed,
photos, videos, and even the radar tracking could have a conventional
explanation.

Many times the meteorological conditions and even more,
the psychological conditions at the moment of the UFO report, can influence the
report itself.

But it is important to agree and concede that the
investigator could come to a point at which he/she has not a conventional explanation
for the phenomenon.

We do not know everything. Science provides us with the
best methodology if we try to know something, but science in itself is
permanently dealing with the unknown that procures to know.

As physicist Brian Cox (*) once said: “I'm comfortable
with the unknown—that’s the point of science. There are places out there,
billions of places out there, that we know nothing about. And the fact that we
know nothing about them excites me, and I want to go out and find out about
them. And that's what science is. So I think if you’re not comfortable with the
unknown, then it’s difficult to be a scientist… I don’t need an answer. I don’t
need answers to everything. I want to have answers to find.”

That is why I accept the general idea that there could be
things that still are “unidentified”, which doesn’t mean necessarily that they
are not identifiable.

But as investigators, I think that we have to be open to
the possibility that we can find something that no matter how much we struggle
to identify, could remain unidentified to us.

And that could be a drop in the vast ocean of
identifiable things that the people, in general, could report as
“unidentified”, simply because they succumb to the trend of the way society has
been given to think, (which is a form of ignorance), because they look for
publicity, or –even worst— to make money.

If something remains unidentified to us, investigators,
it should be after we have gathered all the possible information about the
phenomenon in question. Not because of failed field work or insufficient data.

It is not that certain phenomena are unfathomable, but we
need to gather all the possible information along the time to finally arrive at
the identification of what could be a new technological development, or a
natural phenomenon still not well known or studied. The perfect example for
this is the Sprites, whose existence science recognized only in 1994.

(*)Brian
Edward CoxOBE, FRS, (born 3 March 1968) is an English physicist who
serves as professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy
at the University of Manchester.